It's not a PC thing, either. Lame sites appear on Macs, too.

There are at least hundreds and possibly thousands of active personal finance sites, depending on your definition of “active”. So what makes Control Your Cash so special, so worthy of your attention when you could be reading someone else’s site?

Apparently it’s industry SOP to write blog posts in numerical point form, so let’s incorporate that method to answer the question, just to illustrate a point:

1. We assume you can breathe through your nose.

The content that fills most personal finance sites, including plenty that are more popular than this one, is largely useless. It’s tough to point out examples without sounding whiny. We even hesitate to use verbatim quotes, because it’s easy to Google them and identify the “writers” who are dispensing said useless content. But we promise that never will Control Your Cash waste your time. Here’s a recent post on a high-traffic blog. The post’s headline lists the ways the author thinks retail workers ought to behave, and continues:

“Everyone gets coughs and colds but try not to emphasize that to customers, especially when handling their food products.”

This is just one example, and not even a particularly egregious one by the standards set for these things. We’re unsure what inherent value there is in reminding people not to sneeze while handling customers’ “food products”, or food. Anyone who got smarter by reading that post – in other words, anyone who thought it was OK to blow their nose into someone’s soup and now understands that it isn’t – isn’t the kind of person we want reading Control Your Cash anyway. Try here instead.

There are worse examples than that, too. For instance, one wag tells you you need:

-“a properly diversified portfolio holds stocks of all types, sizes, nationalities, and flavors”

Literally, all sizes? All nationalities? So I should include some Nauruan mid-caps along with my good old Canadian penny stocks?

That second example is worse because it’s trying to educate you on something that isn’t obvious – and only giving half the story.

We understand that people are reading our blog and others for value. If you’re here, presumably you want to get something meaningful out of the few minutes you spend with us. Therefore it’s on us, the Control Your Cash team, to quantify and clarify. Like:

“You need a diverse portfolio: one that isn’t beholden to just one (or even two) market segments. And don’t feel that you’re obligated to invest exclusively in American companies, either. Money flows as quickly as electrons, and there are more chances for you to capitalize on that now than ever before.”

Which we’d follow with examples of stocks available in, say, Europe and Australia, with recommendations on how to locate and invest in them. Which will take more than a few minutes, and which we might write about at length sometime. What we won’t do is patronize you with half a sentence about the most generic type of diversification.

2. The passive voice is not the one in which we communicate.

This isn’t just a schoolmarmish grammar issue. Here’s a recent example from a competing blog, citing different ways to pay your federal income taxes if you’re strapped:

“There are a number of factors that must be taken into consideration when deciding which payment option is best for your unique circumstances. It is important to consider how fast you can feasibly pay back the taxes owed, making sure to take living expenses into account. The applicable interest rate for each option is another significant factor.”

Are you trying to put me to sleep? I’m serious: are you actively, deliberately, attempting to render me unconscious? Write like a freaking human. You know, so people can understand you. Something like:

“If you owe the IRS, ask them for a payment plan. (Ed. Note: we’d follow this with the procedure for doing so, and the likelihood of it working.) Or borrow money from a friend or a professional lender. Paying interest is bad, but tax liens are worse. Prison is worse still.”

3. We’re not just going to cut and paste whatever Dave Ramsey said this week.

Dave Ramsey is a hero to many personal finance bloggers, likely because of his prolific output and his foundation in Biblical principles. Mr. Ramsey seems like a nice fellow. He’s as successful at this line of work – dispensing financial advice – as just about anyone. We’d be thrilled if we sell half as many books as he does. But his advice is obvious at best and stifling at worst.

Credit card debt is bad. Fine, so is putting your hand in a piranha tank. If you don’t already know that, you shouldn’t be in front of a computer or any other bright shiny object.

Some people, like Mr. Ramsey, take this to its logical extension and decide that credit cards themselves are horrible and should be put to death.  This makes as much sense as going without a car because you got in a minor accident. Credit cards are tools, no better nor more evil than guns and flashlights. Exercise a little self-control, and your cards will be loyal and dutiful companions. Without credit cards,

-buying concert tickets and lots of similar items is a pain, if not impossible;
-you’re telling the world, “Rob me! I am completely liquid! (This goes octuple in exotic countries);
-you can dispute the charges on a big-ticket item if the seller turns out to be unscrupulous. Try doing that with a cash purchase;
-you’re screwed by the time value of money. Why would I pay for something immediately, when I can wait as long as 60 days and pay the same amount?

Incur the charges, pay the freaking balance off on time. Nothing is easier than this.

4. We stand “standard” advice on its head when warranted.

For instance, debt isn’t all bad. (Heresy!) If you really believe that, you shouldn’t buy a house until you can afford to pay cash for it. The median house price in America is about $184,000. How many times your annual salary is that? Now calculate it as a multiple of your salary minus what you require to feed and clothe yourself, among other things. You really want to pay cash for a house, and do so before you turn 90?

A house is a reasonable investment to finance. Groceries, bar tabs and tanks of gas are not. The house will still be there 50 years from now, presumably. It comes with built-in tax breaks. You need somewhere to live anyway. Sure, in 2010 your house can lose value in the eyes of an appraiser. But any rent check you write will lose value for you every time, without fail, regardless of the strength or weakness of the underlying economy, from now until the sun goes red supergiant, forever and ever, Amen.

5. We wrote this amazing book.

It drove us crazy. There was no personal finance book out there that had anything worthwhile to say. Well, that’s not technically true, but most of the books we saw would follow an insightful sentence or paragraph with 20 pages of fluff and nonsense.

So we wrote a book that explains every aspect of personal finance to the neophyte. We’re not looking for morons to read our book. We’re looking for people who aren’t intimidated by words like “neophyte”, and who know plenty about the world around them, but who admit that they don’t know enough about money. The book assumes you don’t have a handle on the jargon and the complex concepts that a regular Wall Street Journal reader understands, and also assumes that you’re not a retard. We know you don’t have time to plow through condescending “tips” (“buy things on sale”), but could probably use a little elucidation instead of guessing your way through your finances. Sound too good to be true? Read the sample chapter.